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I am a partner in a small network systems consulting/service/integration etc., etc. firm. For the past 10 years, my business partner and I have almost exclusively promoted Dell servers, laptops and in many cases desktops. Over the years I know that we’ve brought Dell several millions of dollars in business, including Dell products that we have resold directly.
In our business model, we sometimes resell and sometimes ‘tell’ our clients to buy directly form Dell. Each client and each purchase is handled on a case by case basis often, with many clients purchasing both from Dell and us. For example, we may resell a server bundle to a client but have them order a laptop directly from Dell. Sometimes this works the other way around- it all depends on several factors and the mix and match strategy has served us and our clients well.
Unfortunately, we have the following issues when dealing with Dell:
1. Dell creates programs for ‘consultants, vars, etc.,’ only to dismantle them and rename them something else. Because of this, we are constantly being assigned different reps. This really demonstrates Dell’s lack of support for VARs and frustrates us to no end when we have to reestablish a relationship with a new person every 3-6 months.
2. Reps ‘steal’ us from other each other and, in the process of competing with each other, give us poor service. Not all of time but enough for us to question Dell’s commitment to providing good sales service. This tends to happen when, in an emergency, we must place an order for equipment but the regular salesperson is not available and we end up speaking with another rep.
3. We sometimes have dedicated ways to bypass support menus only to have such perks taken away when Dell ‘changes up’ their programs for ‘consultants & vars.’ This makes it hard for us to ‘add- value’ to our relationships with our clients when we sit on hold as long as they do.
4. We receive no credit or extra recognition for our loyalty to Dell. When we resell we can make profit but for all of the times when we tell our customers to buy direct, which are many, we receive nothing. At the very least, we would like a single point of contact, expedited support and a dedicated sales team that either does not change or provides continuity to whoever takes over. We also don’t want a separate rep for each client just because they order something directly. We want one rep who will resell to us and will sell to our clients but maintain a high level of transparency so we can preserve our status with our clients. Would we like Dell to take care of us in other ways? Of course because the opportunity cost to us for Dell not doing so is the profit we would make by reselling everything all of the time- as we would do with another vendor.
5. We feel we have no higher authority at Dell whom we can turn to who understands the value of our contribution to Dell and who will assist us with issues like the ones I’m presenting here. We often feel like we are lumped in with the rest of the end users or retail buyers and that the salespersons and managers whom we deal with care only about their numbers versus our overall contribution to Dell. Once a regional rep looked us over but then gave us the cold shoulder when he realized that, because of our business model, his numbers wouldn’t benefit enough directly for him to bother with us.
6. MOST IMPORTANTLY- Dell’s Business Alliance Program is going directly to our clients and competing with us for the same IT services that we offer. This seems to happen because, when clients sometimes purchase directly from Dell they are then approached by these teams like the BAP. More than anything else, this will force us to abandon the loyalty we have to Dell, that is based largely on what we believe to be superior server and laptop products and excellent service for servers, and drive us to HP or IBM who have well worked out channel programs, better transparency to the end client and who generally better serve and support their VARs.
I hope this is specific enough to elicit more than a ‘PR’ generated response because, as trusted advisors to our clients, we need real solutions to the problem mentioned above- not general statements about Dell’s spurious commitments to the channel. For the reasons I mentioned about our loyalty to Dell, we would like to see solutions to these issues but if necessary, will go elsewhere.
dell4myclients150.0
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